Uncategorized – Carrick Marketing Communicationshttp://carrickmarketingcommunications.com
Strategies, Tactics and Advice for Marketing Business ServicesWed, 31 Jan 2018 15:21:55 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.5The Golden Rule of PR Still Ruleshttp://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/the-golden-rule-of-pr-still-rules
http://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/the-golden-rule-of-pr-still-rules#respondWed, 31 Jan 2018 15:18:06 +0000http://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/?p=550Most professional communicators have, at some point in their careers, had to answer difficult questions or justify official positions they don’t agree with on behalf of their employers. That is part of the job. Lying is not.

Early on in my career, while working at a global bank, I had to field pointed inquiries from the media related to banking practices that were not illegal but didn’t exactly pass the integrity smell test either. That was difficult. But what I learned was that clarity, consistency and honesty above all are paramount in dealing with the press. If, as an official spokesperson, you break that rule, you lose all credibility. End of story.

Does this golden rule still hold true today in an environment where the White House Press Office perpetuates lies regarding, for example, crowd size in the face of contrary photographic evidence? Yes, reassuringly, the PR profession is appalled, as we should be. A survey of 900 PR pros done by USC Annenberg’s Center for Public Relations confirmed that the golden rule still holds true. Per PR Week’s reporting on the survey: “A whopping 83% agreed that the top reason the White House team is damaging to the industry is that they ‘constantly change their views/statements’ said 83% of PR pros. The survey also revealed that a majority of PR pros agree the White House comms team ‘distorts the truth’ (80%) and ‘purposefully lie’ (63%).” Read more here.

Lesson learned? Professional integrity still matters.

]]>http://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/the-golden-rule-of-pr-still-rules/feed0External Surveys – Internal Considerationshttp://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/external-surveys-internal-considerations
Thu, 23 Jan 2014 16:49:44 +0000http://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/?p=517In working with clients to develop and execute customer surveys, the initial focus tends to be external. That makes perfect sense since the primary goal is to gauge what the outside world thinks of your products and services. However, there are a whole bunch of internal considerations that deserve a close look before launching this type of external program, especially if you are just starting to survey.

The list below, while not all-inclusive – covers some of the main questions to ask and answer before launching a customer satisfaction program:

Overall, how will the survey process sync with your corporate culture? Does it, for instance, support your mission statement?

How will you communicate the goals of the survey to your team? Will they buy into a program that may, for instance, ask potentially sensitive questions about the performance of their department?

How will you communicate the results to your team? Will you be transparent in sharing them across the organization, even if they may reflect poorly on some departments or processes?

Will you offer training and/or coaching to departments/teams where the surveys uncover room for improvement?

How will you act upon potentially negative information emanating from the survey? Positive information?

Will the survey be tied to individual performance reviews?

What is the chain of command to resolve issues highlighted by the survey results? In other words, who “owns” the action items that the survey may uncover?

]]>Asking the Right Questions – Doing your Homeworkhttp://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/asking-the-right-questions-doing-your-homework
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:16:50 +0000http://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/?p=371Here’s a true story that best illustrates the absolute necessity of understanding customers’ needs. It also offers a bonus lesson on when it’s sometimes better to shut up rather than speak.

Several years ago, a consulting team from one of the “big” firms finally snagged a full hour with the CEO of a global consumer products business. Suited up and armed with the requisite powerpoint deck for the meeting, the lead consultant asked the CEO what he assumed was a harmless question to get the ball rolling: “Tell us about your biggest challenges”.

The CEO was apoplectic. He hadn’t called this meeting to outline his challenges to a group of outside consultants. He had agreed to sit down and listen to their ideas for improving his bottom line. In any event, the meeting was cut short. And that particular firm never had the opportunity to pitch that CEO again.

In our view, the CEO was absolutely right – the consulting team should have walked through the door knowing exactly what the CEO’s challenges were. They could have read the most recent annual report, read interviews with the CEO published in the press and studied analysts reports. There was simply no excuse for their ignorance.

Two (painful) lessons learned:

Don’t put your foot in your mouth. Never ask an ill-thought out “icebreaker” type of question. In a high pressure situation, our natural inclination is to get the conversation started but, for goodness’ sake, think before you speak, especially if this is your one and only chance before an important decision-maker.

Do put your foot in your client’s shoe. Walk in your clients’ boots by doing research. Set a Google alert on your top prospects. Got to sites like vault.com to see what their own people say about them. Check out indeed.com to see who they are hiring. Check out the obvious too like the client’s press releases, analysts’ reports and so on. There is simply no excuse for not knowing enough about any customer to initiate a basic conversation about how you and your company can help them.

]]>Where Do We Start?http://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/where-do-we-start
Wed, 16 Mar 2011 19:47:05 +0000http://carrickmarketingcommunications.com/?p=313We are hearing that question a lot these days from entrepreneurs who seem to be coming out of the woodwork. Many of them started businesses during the downturn and are finally, after a couple of years of hard work, getting some traction. Having put blood, sweat and often tears into growing their businesses, they now have money to invest in marketing. But they often aren’t sure where to start.

The mistake many make is to start by thinking first about what we call marketing “venues”. The questions we hear often go like this, “Should I advertise?”, “What does it take to manage a blog?”, or “Do you know anyone who can design and build a trade show exhibit by next month?”. These aren’t bad questions, per se, but they are often mis-guided and/or mis-sequenced.

Instead of focusing on the venue, business leaders need to start by asking themselves who they need to reach. Once they define their audience, they can then decide upon the best venue to reach it. An intermediate – and absolutely critical step – is articulating the messages the business needs to convey to your audience. Only then can you figure out the most effective and efficient way of getting that message disseminated.

Think of it this way. A young opera star is not going to find his/her target audience at Lollapalooza (celebrating it’s 20th year this coming summer, by the way).